On April 1, 2017, I attended a beautiful event at City Hall – “Children for Peace” – a silent auction of wonderful paintings created by Syrian children with proceeds going to the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO).
You can still bid on these paintings at https://ssrp-ottawa.ca/auction until April 21, 2017.
This event was a beautiful partnership between the Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre, the Services for Syrian Refugees Program and the Humans for Peace Institution.
The artwork is truly amazing.
Before the formal program started, the guests had time to walk around and view the paintings and visit with each other.
I asked a lovely young lady at the event if she could take this photo so that I could be in it too.
And here is that lovely young lady with her family and Jean Cloutier, Ottawa City Councillor for the Alta Vista Ward.
A big thank you to Jean for inviting me to join him and his wife, Sandra, at this wonderful event.
The formal program started with a speech by Michael Qaqish, Ottawa City Councillor for Gloucester-South Nepean Ward.
Dr. Tobey Audcent gave a beautiful speech on behalf of CHEO.
A representative from the Ottawa Chinese Community Service Centre spoke about their amazing partnership with the Services for Syrian Refugees Program. I feel terrible that I did not get this woman’s name – if anyone knows it, please let me know and I will update this post!
Dr. Mohd Jamal Alsharif, Founder and President of the Humans for Peace Institution spoke passionately about his involvement with this event.
Mohammad Ali, the artist who lead this amazing initiative, spoke next. You can read a beautiful article on the Humans for Peace Institution page explaining more about Mohammad’s inspiration for this project here.
The children then came up to read a poem and sing a song.
At the end of the formal program, the children were called up one by one to receive a Certificate of Congratulations and a Certificate of Peace.
A lovely reception followed the formal program. I tried to get as many photos as I could!
I made some great new friends at this event. I hope that there will be some great World-Changing Kids collaborations that come out of this … stay tuned for more details!